Amazon narrows the field of candidates for its $5B second headquarters to 20 cities across...
Amazon has revealed its list of candidates for building a new headquarters in North America, publishing a shortlist of 20 cities and metropolitan areas that are still in the running to host the online retail giant's second base of operations.
The retail firm has whittled the list down from 238 initial applicants to 20, according to a statement released on Thursday. The list of contenders consists of 19 cities in the United States and one in Canada, with the list generally skewing towards the East Coast, the opposite side of the country to Amazon's existing headquarters in Seattle, WA.
The winning candidate stands to benefit from an influx of high-paid jobs, with Amazon claiming up to 50,000 employees may work at "HQ2" once it's operational. Amazon also plans to spend more than $5 billion on the new facility, an expenditure in the same ballpark as Apple Park, Apple's newest headquarters.
Along with Amazon's direct hiring and investment, it is also thought the construction and ongoing operation of the facility will create tens of thousands of additional jobs, and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment to the surrounding community.
The remaining applicant cities hoping to host Amazon are:
The Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. locations are the ones with the tightest proximity, all within 20 miles of each other.
Amazon plans to spend the coming months working with each city to further examine their proposals, including whether the company's hiring plans can be accommodated, and how well the selection could benefit employees and the local community. A decision is expected to be made later in 2018.
The retail firm has whittled the list down from 238 initial applicants to 20, according to a statement released on Thursday. The list of contenders consists of 19 cities in the United States and one in Canada, with the list generally skewing towards the East Coast, the opposite side of the country to Amazon's existing headquarters in Seattle, WA.
The winning candidate stands to benefit from an influx of high-paid jobs, with Amazon claiming up to 50,000 employees may work at "HQ2" once it's operational. Amazon also plans to spend more than $5 billion on the new facility, an expenditure in the same ballpark as Apple Park, Apple's newest headquarters.
Along with Amazon's direct hiring and investment, it is also thought the construction and ongoing operation of the facility will create tens of thousands of additional jobs, and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment to the surrounding community.
The remaining applicant cities hoping to host Amazon are:
- Atlanta, GA
- Austin, TX
- Boston, MA
- Chicago, IL
- Columbus, OH
- Dallas, TX
- Denver, CO
- Indianapolis, IN
- Los Angeles, CA
- Miami, FL
- Montgomery County, MD
- Nashville, TN
- Newark, NJ
- New York City, NY
- Northern Virginia, VA
- Philadelphia, PA
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Raleigh, NC
- Toronto, ON
- Washington D.C.
The Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. locations are the ones with the tightest proximity, all within 20 miles of each other.
Amazon plans to spend the coming months working with each city to further examine their proposals, including whether the company's hiring plans can be accommodated, and how well the selection could benefit employees and the local community. A decision is expected to be made later in 2018.
Comments
The rest all have serious issues.
Haven't formed an opinion if this would be good for the city or not.
Which map better reveals that fact that Amazon excluded any city within 1000 miles of Seattle, for example?
2) You still have lines coming off the East Coast, as I stated.
3a) Why would you add Seattle to the map when Seattle isn't one of the 20 candidates?
3b) In both maps I can easily see that there's no dot in Washington state, but the original map is much easier to see where the all the dots are because it isn't cluttered by a bunch of names.
4) Is this an issue of you not knowing where these major North American cities/areas are located? If so, how can you can tell which dot is Montgomery Country, Northern VA, and DC, since there's a single line to represent all three of those locations? How is that a better than a separate line connecting each location to a name?
Proximity to a fast internet backbone if data traffic is key, or a cheap energy if there's a huge amount of energy needed, or access to an airport that can service cargo planes if we're talking about an Amazon warehouse facility, or affordable housing and a great location for families (e.g.: school districts) and public and private transportation to work if we're talking about a standard operations facility, or adjacent to great technical schools if we're talking about interns and skunkworks engineering facilities, and, of course, low cost land, construction, all longterm facilities cost, licensing, and any tax breaks that be applied for bringing business to an area…. to name just a few off the top of my head. In no scenario can I imagine that Amazon would make a decision because "the city looks pretty on certain days from across a body of water.
Centrally located.
Huge high tech presence existing.
Interstates out the ying yang.
Rail
Moderate climate.
Younger dynamic cross section of workers.
Plenty of larger, well located land tracts.
Right-to-work state.
I am prejudiced.
Do not underestimate right-to-work.